This post is mostly intended as a checklist for my own reference, but I thought "Hey, if I'm doing this for me, it might help someone else !"
In the real non-Hive world, I own an e-commerce micro-business. I'm not going to say it's name, because it's a niche business solely focused on the UK market so not relevant to most Hivers, plus also if I give the name I'd be totally blowing away my own anonymity and doxxing myself 😂
So this list is all the ways I can think of to market a small business selling physical goods to a specific geographical area. I don't do all of them, but the idea with this list is to be able to go on and work out an order of priority based on which are likely to be most effective for the budget and time available.
Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay
I've broken the methods down roughly based on which generation of marketing they're from;
Old School
- Have a bricks & mortar shop (or warehouse with collection point / trade counter)
- Have a stand at relevant events and shows
- Sponsor product-related events (event sponsorship, competition prizes etc)
- Word of mouth
- Leaflets enclosed with orders
- Leaflets delivered locally
- Networking events
- Print advertising (specialist magazine ads/advertorials)
- Loyalty cards / programs
Web2
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Email newsletters
- Abandoned cart emails
- Affiliate marketing
- Google Adwords
- Google Shopping Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Facebook posting / linking
- Bing Ads
- YouTube videos (own or sponsor other creators)
- TikTok
Web3
- Educational / informational posts on Hive etc
- Videos on 3Speak, Odysee etc
- ListNerds
- Hivelist
- Buying keywords on Presearch
- Brave Ads (expensive !)
I'm sure there are a bunch I've missed ! I'd love feedback on what I've forgotten, especially for Web3 marketing ideas - I appreciate it's a relatively new area that's still developing, so there are bound to be projects relevant to small businesses that I haven't heard of.
If you're interested in seeing posts where I drill down into some of these in more detail, let me know that as well 😀